Between work and the weather I have not been able to get out
and about much lately.
Right on the last day I grabbed some time to visit the “Fotografia Europea” photographic festival located in various locations
here in Reggio Emilia. On a hot humid day it was a bit of a hard slog to get
round all the venues.
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
The highlight of the festival for me was the Herbert List exhibition that
put the rest of the shows in the shade. Seeing the actual photographs was absolutely
stunning.
The huge Ghirri exhibition made me
realise that I like this photographers work in small doses. I saw a lot of
stuff in this retrospective that risks falling into the boring
photographs category. However I like the wittiness present in much of his work
that his imitators always lack.
The main part of the Sara Moon show was interesting but the second part in
the city museum with photographs taken in Reggio, commissioned especially for
this festival was very poor , relying on a lens permanently out of focus on one
side to take some rather banal snapshots.
At Galleria Parmiggiani I saw some pure Psueds corner stuff downstairs. The
other two shows were quite interesting. At the old Synagogue I liked the
Camoresi show taken in a disused island penal colony.
The Magnum exhibition with Martin Parr was rather small and not particularly
interesting. Parr has done much better things.
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
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| Herbert List, Fotografia Europea 2014, Reggio Emilia |
What was most interesting was that I got to see some
places in Reggio that I had never seen inside before.
Sunday I visited “Palazzo del Mosto” in the centre of Reggio Emilia that was open this weekend. This Renaissance palace has just been
restored and choosing the right time of day I managed to photograph undisturbed the splendid seventeenth century staircase,
the lovely wooden ceilings and what remains of the frescos. I cannot find out
much about the origins of this building that has been much altered down the centuries.
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
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| Palazzo del Mosto, Reggio Emilia |
Two weeks ago I finally
got around to climbing Monte Penna, a secondary mountain behind the “Crinale” in the Province of Reggio. Starting from Costabuona the path follows a cart track almost right up
to the main mountain. It is a long boring
uphill trek with a steep climb right at the end to arrive on top of the
mountain. The view from the top is quite something . A local told me whilst I was on my way up
that I would be able see the gun emplacements dug by the Partisans and the SAS
troops dropped in to help them during the last war right on top of the mountain.
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Gun emplacements, Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
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| Monte Penna, RE |
I still had some time to spare and so I decided to
explore Costabuona. I found some nice
architectural details around the village. I got talking with one of the
inhabitants, who told me that the population of 600 in 1960 had now fallen to 50,
with most of the houses being second homes.
But he also told me that some families had as many as 17 children.
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| Costabuona,RE |
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| Costabuona,RE |
The week before that I visited Lago Fontanaluccia between Reggio Emilia and Modena before
exploring the Dolo Valley as far as Rovolo.
The dam that is responsible for the artificial lake is a splendid
piece of engineering considering that it
was built in the 1920’s. The load bearing structure is a series of vertical
arches in brick that save on materials. Much
more cleaver than the modern “lets cast a huge block of concrerte”
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| Lago Fontanaluccia, RE |
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| Lago Fontanaluccia, RE |
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| Lago Fontanaluccia, RE |
The little village of Rovolo had some nice spontaneous architecture.
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| Rovolo,MO |
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| Rovolo,MO |
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| Rovolo,MO |
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| Rovolo,MO |
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| Rovolo,MO |
I also stopped off at Cervarolo on the way to the lake,
where the Germans massacred a lot of
civilians during the second world war. There is a little monument in the
village square and it is all quite moving. What
they do not tell you is that the partisans massacred sometime later a group of German soldiers that they had
captured together with some local Fascists a few hundred yards down the road. There
is no monument for those killings.
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| Cervarolo,RE |
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| Cervarolo,RE |
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| Cervarolo,RE |
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